In November 2016 at the Highways UK conference, Jim spoke passionately about the future of major projects and infrastructure in the post-Brexit world of uncertainty. There’s no question that infrastructure is a key element of economic recovery and national pride – but project management offices are under ever greater pressure to cut costs and demonstrate value. We say: The Quick Wins are over. There’s nothing left to trim back. And people can’t work any harder, either – like tired doctors and drained pilots, more pressure doesn’t yield a better result. Yet high-performing organisations successfully complete 89% of their projects, while low …

At this time of year, most companies do some sort of “look back at the year just gone, and a look ahead to the coming year”. I’m probably not the only MD to be sitting at his desk, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Twelve months ago, the idea that we would be on our way out of the EU (probably, sort of, maybe, in some way, eventually), that the outsider candidate would win the Presidency, and the idea that our borrowing targets would be out of the window – well, it’s all faintly surreal. Where does that leave us? Well, …

A2B Excellence has a rich heritage in civils and construction; but the majority of our work has been in rail. In the past year, we have begun to apply our programme improvement methodologies to highways too – and just in time: Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced over £1bn in spending to improve Britain’s roads. We have been working in partnership with TRL, the UK’s leading independent strategic transport business, to build coherent, forward-thinking highways infrastructure propositions. As long-standing partners in TRL’s highways consortium (also including civil engineering giants, Jacobs and Costain, and environmental consultancy, the Temple Group) we were therefore …

Here at A2B Excellence, we haven’t stopped banging on about employee engagement for at least four years. We’ve won awards, we’ve changed large organisations and positively affected their futures and outcomes. But as employee engagement has become a buzzword in its own right, it’s easy to forget exactly what it looks like on the ground. So let’s revisit. Long before the term became commonplace, we used to say something fundamental which has become a part of the soul of our business: “The greatest overall improvements in output and efficiency today won’t come from shaving costs, the upheaval of endless reorganisations …

In this interesting article from the BBC, a fund manager, Neil Woodford, explains why he has stopped paying bonuses to his staff. Instead, his team will get an increase in pay and benefits. I think this is interesting – not because Mr Woodford is doing something new, but because he is being honest. He says that bonuses have become a given; something his employees feel they are entitled to. And in financial services, he is probably right. Therefore, they should not be called bonuses, because they are not incentivising improved activity. There is another argument that in financial services, where the media …

A2B Excellence are over the moon to announce that our client, Transport for London’s Four Lines Modernisation programme (4LM), has been declared a finalist in the 2016 global Employee Engagement Awards (International Category). 4LM is a huge project – including the world’s largest signalling programme; and features over 2500 team members on three continents spread across multiple main partners and delivery subcontractors. It’s a great example of the sort of structure which is prevalent in complex projects, and where engagement efforts can yield exceptional results in motivation, productivity and outputs. The 4LM management team’s commitment has led to independently verified improvements in …

What happened to ‘jobs for life’? Why do some employees want sabbaticals to go travelling while others crave security? Why don’t companies seem to think further than three months ahead? At A2B Excellence, our work on major projects always starts with the people on the team; and this has led us to understand the motivations of a rapidly changing workforce in a rapidly changing world. This is the presentation that Drew Barritt and Cari Hewer of A2B Excellence first gave at the Yong Rail Professionals meeting in September 2015; we have put it in video form for you here.